Terry Mattingly

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New York Times team attends one of the first funerals in Kenya, with eyes open

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The massacre at Garissa University College in Kenya is now fading into media memory, which is not the case for those of us who continue to be haunted by photos and stories that circulate on Twitter and Facebook among human-rights activists who are growing increasingly concerned about the persecution of the church in Africa and the Middle East.

For the most part, journalists around the world spotted the religious themes in this hellish drama -- with stunning exceptions like the early coverage in The Washington Post.

I was left asking one question: Would this story have received more coverage in television news if someone, early on, had accurately called this the "Holy Week massacre"? There was, after all, evidence that the al-Shabaab gunmen specifically targeted a pre-Easter worship service that had been announced on campus. The bloodbath took place on Maundy Thursday, for Catholics and Protestants in the churches of the West.

Sometimes, all reporters have to do to cover the religion angles in this kind of story is open their eyes and ears and take notes.


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The Daily Mail talks to Memories Pizza folks, but fails to nail down one crucial angle

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After all the ink that was spilled on the Memories Pizza story -- including when the famous and/or infamous GoFundMe campaign hit pay dirt -- I was curious to know how much attention the mainstream press would continue to pay to this angle in the Indiana culture wars. How about you?

Surf around in this Google News search and you discover that, after the death threats died down, the press lost interest. But I was still curious and, in this social media age, I kept following the rumors. Did you know that some on the cultural left actually argued that the entire media firestorm was intentional and part of a clever plot by the Memories Pizza family to become martyrs and, thus, cash in?

Anyway, I was happy when a few friends on social media -- think Rod "friend of this blog" Dreher, and others -- pointed me toward an actual news report on this "What happened next?" topic. Believe it or not, it was The Daily Mail in England that convinced owner owner Kevin O’Connor and his media-battered daughter Crystal to come out of hiding and talk. This on-the scene report ran back on April 7, so I'm rather surprised more people haven't chased the story -- especially the angle of what these small-town folks plan to do with the money. Here's the top:

The pizza parlor owners who received death threats and were subjected to an online hate campaign will reopen for business tomorrow with the backing of $842,000 from well wishers and a defiant message that they stand by their opposition to gay weddings. They were going to open today but were advised to hold off for security reasons.
In an exclusive first interview inside Memories Pizza restaurant since it closed down last week, owner Kevin O’Connor and daughter Crystal emerged from hiding and told Daily Mail Online they had been heartened by the support of 29,000 people who donated and many more who wrote to them.


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Jousting with The New York Times: Yes, journalism deserves to be taken seriously

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Jousting with The New York Times: Yes, journalism deserves to be taken seriously

This week's "Crossroads" podcast was supposed to be about the Indiana wars, but that's not how things turned out. The more host Todd Wilken and I talked (click here to tune in), the deeper we dug into a related topic -- the power of elite media to frame national debates.

Wilken found it interesting that, in an age in which traditional print circulation numbers are in sharp decline, that these publications continue to wield great power. What's up with that?

Here's what I told him, as a door into listening to the whole discussion. Remember that movie -- "Shattered Glass" -- about the ethics crisis at The New Republic, long before the digital wars felled that Beltway oracle? The reason the magazine was so important, a character remarked during the film, was its reputation (especially in Democratic administrations) as the "in-flight magazine of Air Force One."

In other words, the old TNR had very few readers, relatively speaking, but about half of them worked in the White House and in the office of people who had the White House inside numbers on speed dials.

And what about The New York Times, the great matron of the Northeast establishment? Yes, the on-paper numbers are down and there are financial issues. But does anyone believe that -- to name one crucial audience -- the percentage of U.S. Supreme Court clerks who subscribe to the Times has gone down? How about in the faculty lounges of law schools that produce justices on the high court?

In other words, it isn't how many people read these publications, but WHERE people read these publications. We are talking about what C.S. Lewis called the Inner Ring.


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What in (pardon me) Hell is Salon talking about? Missing the story of Holy Saturday

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Permit me a few moments here to talk about liturgy and doctrine, a bit. In a moment I will link this to a rather bizarre Salon.com that someone called to my attention.

Since I am an Eastern Orthodox Christian, I spent several hours this morning at church taking parts in the rites of Holy Saturday. If you want to know what Holy Saturday is about, look at the icon at the top of this post. Tomorrow, of course, is Pascha (Easter) on the older Julian calendar.

This is the Orthodox icon that most people think of as the icon of Pascha (Easter) and the Resurrection of Christ. But look carefully. In this icon, Jesus is standing on gates that he has just broken, gates that are surrounded by bones and even a body in a shroud. Also, he is grasping the hands of a woman and a man -- it's Adam and Eve -- and pulling them out of their tombs.

What is happening here? Well, this image is actually of Christ breaking the gates of hell on Holy Saturday. The Resurrection is already a reality, but he has other work to do. It is perfectly normal to hear Orthodox priests preach on this point in Holy Week and, of course, on Holy Saturday.

In the ancient Divine Liturgy of St. Basil, which was used this morning, here is the relevant language in the consecration prayers:


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M.Z. Hemingway asks a 'mirror' question: Why not ask left some tough abortion questions?

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During her eight years at GetReligion, M.Z. Hemingway probably heard one question more than any other from her critics: Why do you spend so much time on abortion when the purpose of GetReligion is to critique mainstream coverage of religion news? Or words to that effect.

Over and over, M.Z. and I responded with variations on several key points: (1) Almost every key media-bias study on religious news issues has included questions about abortion, as a key moral issue. (2) While there are atheists and agnostics who oppose abortion on demand (various links here), debates about abortion in America almost always involve questions about religion and religious groups almost always play prominent roles. The phrase "Keep your rosaries off my ovaries" comes to mind. (3) There is no question that Roe v. Wade played a major role in inspiring the creation of the Religious Right and that defense of abortion rights remains a major priority of the Religious Left.

I could go on, but here is the bottom line. It's almost impossible to discuss religion-news coverage in the mainstream press without digging into bias, balance, accuracy and fairness issues linked to moral issues such as abortion, euthanasia and same-sex marriage.

Anyway, M.Z. has a new post up at The Federalist that digs into this same territory, using an interesting exchange in a Rand Paul press conference as a hook. It's must reading, but I will share one or two chunks of the piece (including a major GetReligion flashback).

The key moment comes roughly eight minutes into the video at the top of this post.


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Religious liberty war moves to Louisiana, with press still struggling with basic facts

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Let's flash back for a moment to my recent post that ran under the headline, "No thanks for the Memories story: Journalism basics at stake in Indiana pizza war."

In it, I gently praised a Reuters report for noting that -- for supporters of Religious Freedom Restoration Act principles -- there is a difference between justifying open discrimination against a class of individuals and allowing religious believers a chance (repeat, a chance) to defend themselves in cases caused by a rare act of conscience clearly linked to religious doctrines in their faith traditions.

That Reuters report began like this:

(Reuters) A small-town, family-owned pizza restaurant in Indiana has aroused social media outrage after telling a local TV station it would support the state’s recently passed religion law by refusing to cater gay weddings.

Once again, the Memories Pizza owners had stressed that they had no intention of ever refusing service to gays and lesbians who ordered pizza. Instead, they said that -- for doctrinal reasons -- they would say "no" if faced if faced with a case (theoretical, of course, since this had never taken place) in which someone asked them to cater a dinner linked to a same-sex marriage rite. People serve pizza at wedding receptions all the time, apparently.

Once again let me stress: Journalists do not have to agree with this distinction between the justification of consistent discriminatory actions and the possible defense of rare acts of religious conscience.

However, journalists do need to know that this argument is a crucial element of these debates and know how to accurate describe this distinction for readers.


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ESPN probes Jeremy Lin's 'inner life,' while paying little or no attention to his soul

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I think it's time for a short break from the Indiana wars, at least for a day. So what do you remember about "Linsanity"?

I am referring, of course, to those crazy weeks in 2012 when an unheralded point guard from Harvard University took over professional basketball, which is the kind of thing that can happen when you start playing out of your mind in Madison Square Garden wearing a Knicks jersey.

Jeremy Lin also received attention here at GetReligion because of the role that his Christian faith played in his life. Two headlines capture the tone  -- Sarah Pulliam Bailey's "Jeremy Lin, the Knick's Tim Tebow?" and a piece that I wrote, looking ahead, called "So, is Jeremy Lin a good fit in New York City?" One quote from the New York Times coverage says it all:

If Lin’s storybook week captured the imagination of New York City and the wider sports world, it hit the community of Christian Asian-Americans like a lightning bolt.

You get the picture. The world is not full of over-achieving evangelical Christians from Harvard who are also Asian-Americans and play point guard in New York City. So what happened? First he was traded to a city where, to be blunt about it, he was not as unusual -- playing for the Houston Rockets. But then he was shipped to one of the darkest black holes in the current NBA universe, the rebuilding with little to build with Los Angeles Lakers.

This brings us to the current ESPN: The Magazine feature on Lin, that ran under the massive double-decker headline: "Isolation Play -- It isn't Kobe's taunts or humiliating viral videos that have made this the toughest year of Jeremy Lin's life. It's the feeling that, as hard as he tries, he just doesn't fit in."

So while examining this young man's dark night of the soul, want to guess which part of the Lin story ESPN all but ignored?


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Cheers for Peter Steinfels: Liberal defends both religious liberty and traditional journalism

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If you know the history of mainstream religion-news coverage in the late 20th Century, then you know the byline of Peter Steinfels in The New York Times. As an old-school Catholic progressive, he is now known for his work at Commonweal.

The meltdown in Indiana inspired a piece from Steinfels the other day that GetReligion readers simply must read, from beginning to end. I have literally nothing to say to frame this essay except to say this: What. He. Said.

Here are two key passages. However, like I said, please read it all. The headline: "Any liberals for religious freedom?" It opens like this (with the journalism angle very obvious):

Are there still liberals willing to speak up for religious freedom? I don’t know whether the religious freedom bill passed and signed in Indiana last week -- and now reportedly up for revision -- is a good measure. I do know that, however one precisely balances out the pros and cons of the bill, it does involve religious freedom. 
That was not the perspective of the front-page story in Saturday’s New York Times, which framed the bill as one more tactic for discriminating against gay couples. Conservatives opposed to same-sex marriage were “invoking ‘religious freedom’ as their last line of defense.” ...

The Times news story devoted almost two thirds of its coverage to these critics, far more than to any supporters or to Indiana’s governor.


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Baltimore Sun editors handed major Easter story: They choose to ignore it

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Anyone who has covered religion news knows that one of the greatest challenges on this beat is finding valid, A1-level stories season after season, year after year, for all of those major religious holidays. It is hard, in particular, to find a news hook several days before the holiday -- with A1 art, no less -- that can be produced to run on the morning of the big day.

Christmas is hard, but -- let's face it -- Americans do Christmas stuff early and often. Some churches have even surrendered on that front.

So, on the Christian side of things, Easter is the big challenge since the solemn mood and content of Holy Week, Good Friday and Holy Saturday are so radically different. The whole point is that the universe turns upside down at midnight, which is a little bit late to be shooting color art and writing a story for A1 on Easter.

This year, the editors at The Baltimore Sun (the newspaper that lands in my front yard, for two more months) were handed something extraordinary, precisely on schedule for Easter. The most high-profile religious leader in their circulation zone -- that would be Archbishop William E. Lori, leader of the historic Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore -- was a key player in a new development in one of the hottest stories in America at this moment in time.

The story: The holy war in Indiana and nationwide about religious liberty and First Amendment rights. Was this linked to Holy Week and Easter? In the eyes of the archbishop the answer was a loud and serious "yes."

So how did the Sun team handle this? Did they put this story on the front page on Easter?


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